Axie Infinity rockets after changes to game’s structure
The changes have been made in a bid to reduce volatility risks
Popular metaverse blockchain game Axie Infinity (AXS) has announced that it is renovating its player-vs-player (PVP) reward structure, while reducing the supply of SLP tokens.
The move, which is intended to mitigate volatility risks and build consensus around the game, prompted the value of the AXS token to increase by around 40% in around three days.
At time of writing, AXS is trading higher by 9% at $68.86, with a market cap of $4.1bn and a trading volume of $1.3bn – around 14.5% higher in the last 24 hours.
“We think it’s critical to ensure that a healthy, predictable economy evolves over time, and we take the responsibility of economic balance within Axie extremely seriously,” said the Axie creators.
“We believe the fastest way to reduce this volatility is for us all to come to terms with our collective responsibilities within Axie, and quickly work to build consensus and enable each other’s community efforts. Prosperity amongst a community comes when it collectively creates more value than it consumes,” they said.
Reduced supply of SLP tokens
The platform announced some major changes to gameplay, such as the elimination of the adventure mode.
Around 40% of SLP are created from adventure mode, while roughly 44% are created from PVP and the remaining 14% are minted by players completing the daily quest.
“As a first measure to stabilise the economy, we have removed the 50 SLP that can be earned from adventure mode each day. This alone will remove around 130 million SLP per day,” said Axie.
“Inflation of SLP has been very high, with around four times more SLP being created (supplied) per day than burned (demanded) through breeding. As we are building more burn mechanisms, we are also looking at where we can strategically reduce issuance to balance the economy.”
Daily quest rewards reduced to zero
Other changes include daily quest rewards (paid in SLP) being reduced to zero, including rewards for first time completion, while the Arena reward structure will be changed drastically.
By removing the daily quest, the platform was able to reduce issuance by around 45 million SLP per day. However, the creators did say that the game could feature a new quest mechanism in the future.
“Adventure mode was originally conceived as a way for the community to learn how to use their Axies. It has outlived its purpose as a way for people to earn tokens from the game. In-game rewards should be used to incentivise social activities that improve the ecosystem, and must be earned as a result of skilled activity in the ecosystem,” said the game’s creators.
“The daily quest is generating about as much SLP as is burned through breeding each day. Clearly, that’s not sustainable. The daily quest, in principle, was great to encourage people to play every day but it’s now become a mass emission mechanism for SLP,” they said.
Revamped PVP rewards
The platform also announced that, for season 20, it is introducing an expanded number of leaderboard slots (300,000) while increasing the amount of AXS gifted to 117,676, bringing the total prize pool for the season to $6m.
“This will supercharge the competitive Axie scene and create more demand for quality Axie teams in the ecosystem, further adjusting arena awards. The highest levels will have their rewards the most affected, as they will also have more AXS rewards to compete for,” explained the platform.
“In addition, we will be adding back 1 SLP per win for players under 800 MMR. This will bring some utility to weaker Axies and encourage players to practise even if they’re still learning or having difficulty with the game. Advancements with our bot detection system as well as reduced earnings for bots have also made reintroduction of these rewards possible.”
